Bobby Kotick, CEO of newly minted mega-publisher Activision Blizzard, has forecast the "the natural evolution" of the Guitar Hero franchise: iTunes. "I don't think there have been a lot of credible alternatives to iTunes but Guitar Hero certainly has that potential," Kotick told Financial Times.
While Kotick stopped short of actually detailing the proposal (we're imagining a typical music download service that features some Guitar Hero compatibility), Activision's merger with Vivendi Games ostensibly unlocks the Universal Music catalog, and Vivendi chief exec Jean-Bernard Levy added that the company has payment and processing capabilities in "virtually every country." Certainly, Activision Blizzard has a strong enough backbone to launch an iTunes competitor -- and an untold war chest ($3.5 billion, you say?) to make a bid for the highly coveted Beatles songs -- but to date, releasing 3 or so tracks a month ain't gonna cut it. Let's just get the Guitar Hero DLC updates on par with Rock Band's. Then we'll talk iTunes, m'kay?
Square Enix has a surprise RPG for the handheld gamer. No, it's not on the PSP or DS. Song Summoner: The Unsung Heroes is an iPod exclusive RPG with a rather unique twist. You'll be able to transform your music collection into "Tune Troopers" that you can use in battle. Even cooler: you'll be able to level up your "Tune Troopers" simply by listening to the same song you created them on your iPod. You'll need the help of all your best MP3s, as you fight the Mechanical Militia and save your brother.
The iTunes download, available today, will retail for $4.99. The game will be controlled exclusively through the iPod click wheel and will be compatible with iPod nano with video, iPod classic and fifth generation iPod. While we haven't had a chance to play the game ourselves, we're certainly itching to give it a try. If you download Song Summoner, tell us what you think. Update: Trailer embedded, after the cut.
We've heard tell of the incredible success Harmonix has seen with their weekly downloadable tracks for Rock Band. Often, their sales numbers are matched up against those of Guitar Hero III, where tracks are more seldom, but also sell like diamond-encrusted hotcakes. As enjoyable as these track packs are, we've yet to see any comparison between them and actual music retailers, digital or otherwise -- that is, until Mötley Crüe's new single simultaneously rocked the faces off of music downloaders and DLC collectors alike.
While tilt-sensitive cell phone gaming is apparently nothingnew in Japan, domestic developers/hackers have been slow to create games that take advantage of the iPhone's built-in accelerometer. Enter Trism, a simple, match-three puzzle game from semi-pro developer Demifroce that twists things around by changing the way blocks fall as you twist things around.
A GameSetWatch interview with the developer reveals more of the story behind the game's ten-day development, and includes an excellent video (embedded below) of the game in action. Unfortunately, the forthcoming demo version will only work on jailbroken phones, but the developer says he'd love to sell the game on iTunes once the official iPhone SDK is unveiled. Apple, are you listening?
Apple is hoping you can't get enough of Rock Band, promoting on its website a playlist featuring 74 songs of the game for a whopping $73.26. At $0.99 per song, that's a savings of exactly 0% -- in other words, resist the temptation to buy the whole package (iTunes link) and feed your Phase addiction by downloading the songs you like individually (from either iTunes itself or via one of its competitors).
While the lack of savings might leave room for pause, at 74 songs (that's main setlist and quite a few of the DLC tracks), Apple still missed some of the best gems -- namely, every single bonus song. A quick search on iTunes led us to finding all but four of the bonus tracks ("29 Fingers," "Outside," "Nightmare" and the power ballad "Timmy and the Lords of the Underworld"). If you're looking for a more eclectic mix, search for the bonus 9 tracks available; that'll only cost you $8.91.
Up until yesterday, the living room set-top box was simply a "hobby" for Apple; its fumbled Apple TV product did little to unseat the HD video rental download champ, the largely uncontested Xbox Live Video Marketplace. With a fresh splash of software for new boxes and a free upgrade for current users, Apple TV Take 2 is giving it another shot.
Of course, for an audience of gamers (that's us!), Apple's product has a particularly severe handicap but, on a strictly video entertainment scale, it manages to best the Xbox Live Video Marketplace in just about every category. Now we realize this is, in many ways, an apples to oranges comparison (sorry), but Microsoft isn't just competing for gamer dollars anymore and competition is growing (in fact, the at-home-rental set-top box industry will see another entrant later this year with Netflix).
To get to the bottom of which service provides the most bang for your e-buck, we ran some data through our handy-dandy (and patent pending!) Tabulator and it spit out the table found after the break. Be sure to let us know in the comments if there's anything we're it's missing.
Two new games are available on the iPod today, and they couldn't be any more opposite of each other. One is perfectly suited to the iPod's limited controls, and was practically built to be played with the circular click wheel. The other... well... not so much.
The original Sonic the Hedgehog is now available for the iPod, featuring the full Sega Genesis classic, as well as the option to replace the game's seminal tunes with your own crappy music. We love Sonic and all, but the platforming precision required to play through this title will most likely not prove conducive to the iPod's click wheel and buttons. We expect much cramping and cursing.
Contrast this with Peggle, Popcap's ever-so-excellent casual game offering, and the other game now playable on the iPod. Of the two, Peggle's much more suited to the format, and could easily become one of the best games available for the music player. Both titles are now available for purchase through the iTunes Music Store for $4.99 USD each, and are compatible with the 3G iPod Nano, the 5G iPod, and the iPod Classic.
Read - Sonic press release Read - Peggle press release
MTV Games continues to publish new music titles in its $500 million spree, with the latest Harmonix development, Phase. The original Phase news reminded some of us too much of (non) game, Musika to buy. But this video clearly shows simple pattern-matching gameplay that may rock pockets better than the portable Guitar Hero.
Check out the video, and contemplate your purchase after the break.
While armchair rockers eagerly await this fall's showdown between Rock Band and Guitar Hero, Activision has released a series of song compilations now available from the iTunes Store featuring music from all four Guitar Hero games, including Guitar Hero III: Legends of Rock. The so -called "Guitar Hero Essentials" collection is made up of more than 1300 different tracks, including "nearly every song" from the rhythm game franchise, making us curious as to just what songs didn't make the cut.
In addition, unlike the lion's share of the covers featured in earlier released Guitar Hero titles, these songs are the original artist master recordings from bands such as Pearl Jam, Aerosmith, Rage Against the Machine, and Metallica. Also included in the set are also guitar-themed playlists from Steve Jones and Slash, no doubt ideal for those who cannot get enough of living life vicariously through their favorite guitar virtuosos.
However, before you jump off the deep end and begin offering money to the iTunes gods for downloading rights, Activision notes that while some songs from the Guitar Hero series represent newly re-recorded master recordings, these appear to not be included in this collection, making this less an "essential" compilation of Guitar Hero tracks, and more just an assembly of rocking tunes. Not that there is anything wrong with that.
Sure, Lair the game is bantha poodoo that reviewers apparently don't know how to play, but Lair's soundtrack is full of pseudo-John Williams goodness and now it's available on iTunes. Lair's score by John Debney, which is nominated for a BAFTA award, is great if you like listening to high-energy orchestral soundtracks while banging down the highway at 90 MPH.
If you're looking for alternative songs to the Lair soundtrack, might we suggest:
Fly Like an Eagle (Steve Miller Band or Seal)
I Believe I Can Fly (R. Kelly)
Wind Beneath My Wings (Bette Midler)
Can you think of any other alternative songs for the Lair soundtrack? Oh, and we're totally ahead of you if you think you're being witty by saying Crash and Burn by either The Bangles, Blues Traveler or Simple Plan. Also, don't even think My Favorite Mistake by Sheryl Crow.
Apple just made a whole slew of iPod-related announcements, with just the faintest hint of gamer love. Revealed during Steve Jobs' special iPod event, both the revamped iPod nano and the iPod classic will ship with three games: Vortex, iQuiz, and Klondike.
Klondike is just a fancy name for that Solitaire card game we all know and love, so nothing new there, and iQuiz is a remixed version of the older iPod "guess which song this is" game. Vortex, meanwhile, is a circular, three-dimensional brick-busting game in the style of arcade classics Breakout and Arkanoid. All three titles were developed in-house by Apple, and both Vortex and iQuiz can also currently be purchased on the iTunes store.
Even if the new nano is the Gimli to the old nano's Legolas, it's nice to see both it and the classic getting more into games. Jobs also promises more iPod games coming to the iTunes Store (Hey! You know what would be awesome on the iPod? Peggle!)
Although not addressed during the event, it's assumed that the brand new iPod touch will join the iPhone in being unable to play any games purchased from the iTunes Music Store.
In its annual report covering various entertainment industries, consulting group PricewaterhouseCoopers predicts the video game spending to overtake music spending as early as this year.
The report, covering 2007 through 2011, predicts the video game industry will grow globally at an annual rate of 9.1 percent, from $37.5 billion this year to $48.9 billion in 2011. While the analysis speaks well for the games industry, it also highlights the decline in the music industry. As Ars Technica points out, should EMI's sales from their DRM-free iTunes catalog outpaces their losses in CD sales, the rest of the industry could follow suit.
In-game advertising will grow at an enormous rate, according to the report, predicting a jump from $80 million in 2006 to $950 million in 2011.
Seeing the words "Mother 3" in the same sentence as "released" is cause for excitement. In this case, though, it's more like a kick in the stomach. The Mother 3 soundtrack has just been released on the US iTunes store. All 26 songs from MOTHER3i and the arranged album MOTHER3+ are available for $9.99 each. After almost a year of pestering Nintendo to localize the game, we get a soundtrack.
A soundtrack.
Are we being taunted? Is this a carrot dangling in front of our faces or a gift of mercy from the overlord? It is the first commercial release of EarthBound merchandise outside of Japan since the SNES game in 1995. And it's not like fans won't snatch it up in a heartbeat. But does it make sense to release a soundtrack for a game very few of us have played?
Regardless of our bitter feelings, thank you, Nintendo. We don't mean to be demanding, but how about some graphics, a storyline, dialogue, and gameplay to go along with the music?
[Update: An SCEE spokesperson gave us the following response, "The information in the pamphlet is incorrect. The ambition is to have approx 400 songs for launch and build up the song catalogue on a monthly basis. The actual price for each track has not yet been confirmed."]
The June European release window for PS3 embarrassment simulator, SingStar, isn't far away so details of how the Game 3.0 title works are bound to start cropping up. According to Australia's PALGN, "a pamphlet sent out to Australian retailers confirms a few small details on the upcoming game."
Those details include a rumor that SingStar will hit with thirty tracks preloaded on the disc, each with accompanying high-def video. Also rumored is a ₤1.49 ($2.88) price point for additional songs, nearly double the £0.79 iTunes track fee; however, Sony previously confirmed to Eurogamer that additional SingStar tracks would not be "any more than ... a track purchased from iTunes." It's not clear if the downloadable tracks will include high-definition video as well, arguably justifying the increased cost, or if they'll offer two versions, one with video and one without. We're sure Microsoft is glad to see Sony throwing on their swim trunks and diving into the deep end of the already bloodied waters of micropayments.
Electronic Arts sent out a press release to let us know that "music from all EA games -- past and present -- [is] now available." After hearing this, our racing hearts rushed to the online store to download the soundtrack to Pinball Construction Set, only to find ourselves feeling empty when we learned that "all EA games" means a select few top-sellers from 2003 and beyond. Damn you, sensationalized headline of broken promises!
The selected soundtracks, from such usual suspects such as the EA Sports franchises, are compiled as iMixes for those wishing to download the soundtrack as it appears in the title (direct link). As for us, we've heard every track from Madden NFL 2007 at least a few dozen times just from playing the game, so we'll probably pass on that one.
Snoop Dogg's "exclusive remix" of The Doors' "Riders on the Storm" is also now available (direct link), having appeared in Need for Speed Underground (though conspicuously absent from the NFSU iMix). Some titles, especially those with original scores, are not found on iTunes, instead available via EA's own website. There isn't much to offer yet, but it could show promise if EA continues to update it.
